Controller in Oakland, California at Roots Community Health Center

Position Summary:

The Controller position is responsible for all accounting-related activities within the organization.

Duties and Responsibilities:

• Overseers the organization's financial health and ensures reporting compliance with regulatory agencies.
• Prepares internal and external financial documents such as business reports, financial forecasts and other statements/reports.
• Monitors the organization’s financial reports and determines ways to reduce costs.
• Supervise employees and the accounting/finance departments.
• Guides all operations of the finance department, including but not limited to accounts payable, invoicing and collections.
• Monitors variances, summarizes trends and investigates budget deficiencies.
• Assists management with important financial decisions.
• Collects and consolidates financial data.
• Assists in development of strategic plans for financial operations.
• Coordinates and participates with external auditor activity.
• Provides executive leadership with finance related insights for decision-making purposes.
• Establishes and maintains financial workflows and controls; and assesses and improves accounting procedures.
• Screens, hires, trains, and retains finance department staff.

Core Competencies:

Systems Integrity & Fraud Prevention: Maintains an unyielding focus on internal controls, audit trails, and segregation of duties; proactively audits workflows to prevent, identify, and eliminate risk or financial exposure before it impacts the organization.

Rigorous Technical Accuracy: Demonstrates exceptional precision and methodical discipline across general ledger maintenance, reconciliations, grant accounting, and tax compliance; takes personal ownership of bulletproof financial records.

Proactive Risk & Variance Identification: Continuously monitors financial flows for anomalies, budget variances, or unusual transactions; investigates root causes independently and escalates actionable insights rather than raw numbers.

Cross-Functional Partnership & Translation: Communicates complex accounting rules, grant restrictions, and financial reports clearly to non-financial leaders; partners empathetically with department heads to support budget management without compromising compliance.

Process Automation & Workflow Optimization: Continuously evaluates existing financial systems to streamline routines, eliminate manual redundancies, and improve reporting speed while maintaining strict policy enforcement.

Ethical Stewardship & Discretion: Operates with absolute moral clarity, confidentiality, and professional integrity; serves as an unquestioned guardian of organizational assets, mission resources, and donor trust.

Roots Community Health Center is proud to be an Equal Employment Opportunity/Affirmative Action Employer and values diversity of culture, thought and lived experiences.

We seek talented, qualified individuals regardless of race, color, religion, sex, pregnancy, marital status, age, national origin or ancestry, citizenship, conviction history, uniform service membership/veteran status, physical or mental disability, protected medical conditions, genetic characteristics, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression regardless of physical gender, or any other consideration made unlawful by federal, state, or local laws. Roots uses E Verify to validate the eligibility of our new employees to work legally in the United States.